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No wonder the soldiers wanted off the pier.

I glanced back at the Eidolon. Only one guard remained by the railing, just a regular crewman. He grinned at me, then let his face turn impassive as the captain walked past him to the top of the gangplank.

Isolde turned to face the man.

“Our appreciation, Magistra. Our appreciation.”

Isolde nodded, and he nodded back, then turned back to his command.

“Let’s go.” Isolde looked unruffled and was five paces gone toward the shore end of the pier before we started after her.

By the time we reached the causeway, the tax collector, the wagon, and the troops were gone, carried into the mist that clung even more heavily around the wooden buildings of Freetown.

Given all of the bollards on all the three long piers, Freetown seemed deserted. Only the Eidolon and a smaller fishing boat rested at the piers, and there were no traders, no cargos obvious for unloading or loading.

I caught up to Isolde. Her steps were still quick, and she didn’t even look at me as we stepped off the pier and onto the stone pavement of the causeway. “Will your success teach the duke anything, or will this…embargo…whatever it is…go on?”

“Who knows?” For the first time, her voice sounded tired.

“You didn’t want to do that?”

“Lerris…” The exasperated sound of her voice was more effective than an explanation.

“Oh…”

“That’s right. Now, we need to get to the Travelers’ Rest before the duke gets any more ideas. We’ll turn at the next street, if you can call it that.”

The buildings looked almost ghostly in the dim light and heavy fog and mist. Every so often, an oil lamp peered through the gloom, or a single person scurried away from us.

Tamra had caught up and walked beside me as we followed Isolde up the street away from the harbor proper. Every step seemed to echo, and no one said a word. We just kept walking.

XVIII

THE FOG THINNED by the time we had stumbled and generally trudged uphill for several long blocks. In the middle of an open space where two narrow streets crossed, I paused for a moment. Over my shoulder, I could see the mast tips of the Eidolon.

“Ooooffff…” Sammel, head down, ran into my shoulder.

“Sorry…” I turned and took several quick steps to catch up to Tamra and Isolde.

Overhead, higher clouds had turned dark gray, and a touch of a damp breeze brushed my cheek then was gone. The mist still dropped a faint gauze curtain over the buildings we passed. Many were deserted, or at least dark. From a handful of windows oozed the golden light of lamps. The acrid tang of wood smoke mixed with the dampness of mist.

“Ghost town,” muttered Myrten from somewhere behind me.

“We’re the ghosts,” responded Isolde. Her voice was so low I doubted that Myrten had heard her.

I supposed we were, outsiders haunting the streets while, inside, the Freetowners huddled around the lamps and fires that held an unseasonably early fall at bay.

“Here we are,” announced Isolde.

I glanced ahead over her shoulder.

The building’s weathered timber walls looked gray, spirit gray in the thinning mist and growing dark. But a golden glow poured from every first-floor window, and the blue shutters were folded back to let the light escape, almost as if making a statement that the structure would not draw into itself against the forces of chaos.

“Travelers’ Rest” proclaimed the sign hanging over the wide double doorway. The doors themselves, their thick brass handles glinting in the light of the two oil lamps that flanked the doorway, were still folded back against the wide timbers of the front wall, almost as if daring the dark to enter.

I took a deep breath, feeling some of the tension begin to leave me as I followed Isolde through the doorway.

A second set of doors, red oak like the first, although half the thickness, swung open at her touch.

Within moments we all stood on an open polished wood floor separating a parlor-like area from a wooden counter. Like the doors, the counter was finished and smooth-planed red oak, without ornamentation